


Dust to Dust

by BearSpirit



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, Once Upon a Time (TV), Once Upon a Time in Wonderland (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-06
Updated: 2014-11-26
Packaged: 2018-02-24 07:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2573813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BearSpirit/pseuds/BearSpirit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They can't win, but maybe they don't have to lose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the only problem i've ever had with alcohol is a lack thereof

"Shh. I’m Ana. Wanna team up?"

No. No, not really, no I most certainly do not. I want to go home and see my sister and my friends and my mother again, and I want to be alive and I want to fall in love and what I really want is to get drunk, but the problem is I can’t find any booze in this place. So no, I don’t want to team up with you. But the thing is, Miss, I also don’t want you to kill me.

I tell her yes. Yes, I’d bloody love to. Only my words come out muffled and incoherent, so instead I nod.

She takes her hand away from my mouth and the spearhead away from my chest. She sinks back into her heels and drops her guard a little. She lets me sit up.

On one condition, I tell her. She asks what. Alice, I reply, my district partner, she joins too.

"Good," she says, and she nods to herself, "yeah, that’s good. She’s good. What’s your name?"

She leads me back to her camp and explains why she’s making alliances with two nobodies from District 8 as we walk. Its been an unusually rough year for the Careers -- already, they were all dead, except the guy from District 2, and her. Ana. And Careers, being Careers, like the safety in numbers.

It would take some convincing, she tells me, for him to allow me into the group, but she figures if I came with Alice he might be more lenient. Alice got a good score. 

I ask, so why did you choose me then?

She says, "because you have a nice chin."


	2. sometimes we pretend we aren't animals

The majority of us are dead at this point so I guess you could say things are getting kind of intense.

I’ve found it's a lot easier to make allies than enemies. Nobody knows what they’re doing. Nobody wants to die. So lets not fight. Lets be friends. I’ve got your back; you’ve got mine, and we’ll think ourselves a right good team until reality sets in. I tried to kill someone today. It didn't go exactly as I'd planned. 

"We can’t ally with every tribute in the arena," Ana points out as I bring a girl called Lizard back with me. 

What was I supposed to do, then, kill her?

She shakes her head and walks away, leaving her unspoken reply hanging in the air.


	3. we've lost cabin pressure. oh.

On the fifth day, when there are only two people not in our little alliance still in the Games, we break apart. It starts when Jafar kills the District 3 girl, Jabber. Its chaos after that, and suddenly we’re all animals again.

Somebody kills Lizard.

Somebody kills Cyrus. 

Somebody tries to kill me.

At the creek, he sneaks up on me from behind and pushes my head under the water. My arms flies out, scrambling for my axe, but it must be just out of reach because I can't find it. Then all of a sudden the pressure holding me down is gone and I lift my head and rest on my elbows in the shallow, coughing and sputtering water from my lungs. There are grunts from a fight behind me and I realize somebody just saved my life, for some reason. Once I have enough strength to move, I stand up and pull the District 12 tribute off of my rescuer. My hands tighten around his throat and I push him against a tree. 

I don't know if I can kill him, but he's already starting to turn blue so I'd better make up my mind quickly. 

This is a big moral decision I'm making right now, so I barely even register the silent approach of another tribute in the corner of my vision. When I finally do notice him, I release the boy I had been strangling and let him fall to the ground. _Ana!_ I call out in warning, but by then it's too late.

Jafar shoves a dagger in her back and I make a move for my axe, but before I can he pushes her at me and runs off. She sinks in my arms and I just wait for the cannon. Her cannon. I don't feel much of anything anymore.


	4. let's not kill each other

Listen, I know this’ll sound crazy, but let’s not kill each other.

I tell this to Ana as I rub a little ointment into the stab wound on her back that had barely missed her lumbar spine. 

“You know we have to.” 

Alright then, I say, and I take her hand in one of mine. With my other hand, I grab the spear. I close her fist around its handle and let go. Alright then, I say, kill me.

She glares at me and says, “Later.”

She says, “Now finish up with the ointment already. I’d hate to get an infection.”


	5. moonbeam is not a name, even i know that

Can I ask you a question?

We’re waiting for something to happen. Either for Alice or Jafar to show up, or for the gamemakers to throw something bizarre and most likely lethal at us in the hopes of kick-starting some action. 

I’m wondering why Ana hasn’t killed me yet. 

I’m hoping she’ll hurry up, because I’m getting rather bored of it all. 

I’m talking to pass the time, because if I don’t talk, I think, and I don’t want to think. 

She asks what I want. I want to know-- or at least, what I was going to ask her was if Ana is really her name. I’m under the impression that everyone in District 1 is named Sparkles or Magnificent or Emerald, and if that was my name, I wouldn’t tell anyone either. But her name really isn’t so bad, so I ask her if it’s real.

“My mother’s name is Moonbeam,” is her testy reply, “What are you trying to say about her?”


	6. alice found the drugs

There’s this tree that grows in District 8. 

If you eat the leaves, your body will spasm violently and you’ll start to seize. You’ll foam at the mouth and lose vision in both of your eyes and, if you’ve survived that, you’ll start coughing up blood and maybe even a few of those little air sacs in your lungs, and in 5 to 20 minutes, you’ll be dead. Cause of death: drowning, circulatory shock, or extended hypoxia.

Cause of death: leaves.

Cause of death: hopelessness.

Where I come from, this is something you just know. If you don’t want to die, this is a good thing to know. If you’re out of options and you don’t have a family to take care of, it’s also a good thing to know.

If you eat the berries, you get blisters all the way down the lining of your esophagus and that little dangly thing in your throat, the epi-something-or-other, gets all swollen up. Unless you’re that 12% that just isn’t allergic to them, that is. Then you can eat the berries. Sometimes, if you eat enough of them, the acid can burn through the lining of your stomach until eventually you end up digesting yourself.

If you burn the bark, though, and you breathe in the smoke, you can get high.

These trees don’t grow in District 1.

So when Ana and I stumble into an empty clearing with a fire blazing brightly in its center, I know to cover my face and stand upwind of the smoke, but she doesn’t.


End file.
